December 18, 2013

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Wednesday, December 18, 2013. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

New Alerts for AWS Billing, EC2, and S3
You can now create custom Alerts focused on Cost, EC2 and S3 fluctuations within your AWS account. These alerts can be delivered via email and will also be logged within your CloudCheckr account. You can create, manage, and view your Alerts within the new Alert menu in your projects.

New REST-based API with 4 methods
CloudCheckr now offers an API. For further information on this, please see our support site: https://support.cloudcheckr.com/cloudcheckr-api-userguide/

Added Feedback and Support Tab
At the bottom of your CloudCheckr account you should see a tab labeled “Feedback & Support”. If you click that you can quickly and easily send a Support request to CloudCheckr, or submit Feedback. This will also provide quick access to Knowledge Base articles.

New Report: S3 Network Cost/Usage
This report shows the S3 Network Usage and Cost data, taken from your Detailed Billing report. You can find this report within the Cost > S3 menu.

7 new Best practice checks for CloudTrail

1. CloudTrail Not Enabled – Checks your AWS Account to verify that CloudTrail has been enabled.
2. CloudTrail Delivery Failing – Checks the delivery of the CloudTrail log files to ensure they are not failing.
3. CloudTrail Notification Failing – Checks the SNS Notifications being sent from CloudTrail to ensure they are not failing.
4. CloudTrail Global Service Events – Checks each CloudTrail to ensure they are configured to include global services (like IAM).
5. CloudTrail Missing SNS Topic – Checks each CloudTrail to ensure they have an SNS Topic created.
6. CloudTrail Missing S3 Bucket – Checks each CloudTrail to ensure it is properly configured with an S3 bucket for log delivery.
7. CloudTrail Configured For All Regions – Checks that CloudTrail is configured within each region where it’s available.

New best practice check: AWS Service Limits
This best practice check looks at your AWS account to see if you are nearing any of the AWS Service Limits.

New best practice check: EC2 Reserved Instance Stuck In Payment Pending Mode
This best practice check looks to see if any Resesrved Instance purchases have been stuck as Payment Pending for 3 or more days.

Predicted Cost for Under-Utilized, Unused, and Idle best practice checks
You will see the predicted cost listed in the details of the best practice results for your Under-Utilized, Unused, and Idle resources.

Drilldowns in Best Practice report open in new tab now
When you click on the details of a best practice check it will now open in a separate tab instead of taking you out of the best practices report.

Improvements to Consolidated Billing Summary email
Reorganized some data within the consolidated billing summary email to make it easier to read.

Support for loading Billing only
You can now setup a CloudCheckr project that will only connect to, and report on costs from your AWS detailed billing reports. For more information on this type of setup, see here: https://support.cloudcheckr.com/cloudcheckr-to-monitor-costs-only/

Manual configure for the S3 Detailed Billing bucket
If you add or change your S3 detailed billing bucket within AWS, you can now configure your CloudCheckr project to look at this new bucket. This is managed within the Detailed Billing tab of the Edit Project page.

Show EC2 friendly names in Change Monitoring email
The Change Monitoring email now displays the friendly name of your EC2 instances.

Removed EC2 Cost Recommendation report
The EC2 Cost Recommendation report has been removed as it has been replaced by the EC2 Reserved Instance Purchase Recommendation Report (found within the Cost > EC2 > Reserved Instances menu).

Added filtering to RDS Details report
The RDS Details report now has multiple filtering and column options.

Added filtering for EBS details report
The EBS Details report now has multiple filtering and column options.

OR capability for filtering Custom and Details reports
When setting up Custom Reports or filtering your Details reports, you now have the option to match ANY filter selections in the custom reports (instead of matching ALL). When setting up your custom reports simply uncheck the ‘match all filters’ checkbox and your report will contain results that match ANY of the filter selections.

Change monitoring enabled for CloudTrail
Changes to your CloudTrails will now be included in the Change Monitoring report and email.

New field “Savings from Reserved Instances” in EC2 Cost Summary report
The EC2 Cost Summary report now shows you your actual savings by running Reserved instances over On-Demand.

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November 22, 2013

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Friday, November 22, 2013. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

Added support for the following AWS Services, including Summary and Details Reports

• VPC
• SQS
• SNS
• Route 53
• RedShift
• CloudFormation

 

Completed Upgrading Emails

All of CloudCheckrs email reports have been redesigned to make them easier to read and understand.

 

Reworked Detailed Billing Analysis email

The Detailed Billing Analysis email has been reorganized.

 

Monthly emails for Consolidated Billing Summary and Detailed Billing (w/ Grouping) reports

You can now configure your Consolidated Billing Summary Email and/or your Detailed Billing (w/ Grouping) emails to be delivered to you on a Monthly basis in addition to a daily basis.

 

Export format is more CSV friendly (removed $ and , )

When exporting reports into CSV files, you will no longer see commas (,) or the dollar sign ($), making them more friendly for importing.

 

Updates to the EC2 Details report

• The EC2 Details report will now show you the total number of instances, the total cost of those instances, and the average CPU over the past 7 days for whichever group of instances you are viewing.
• The Summary section of the details for each instance now includes Predicted Hours, showing how many hours per month the instance is predicted to run, based on current usage.
• Each instance is now paired with two links. One that leads to the Change Monitoring report, showing any changes made to that instance over the past 30 days. The other to the Instance History report, showing how many hours that instance has run over the past month.

 

New export for RDS Details report

The RDS Details report can now be exported into CSV format.

 

New views on Dashboard for Reserved Instances and 6 new services

The Dashboard report has been updated to show your Reserved Instance usage, as well as the 6 additional services we now support (VPC, SQS, SNS, RedShift, CloudFormation, and Route 53).

 

Ability to update reports when needed

You now have the ability to tell CloudCheckr to run scans of your AWS account on-demand. To start a new S3 scan or Collection, click on the down-arrow above whichever you’d like to start and click the ‘Run Now’ button.

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November 4, 2013

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Monday, November 4, 2013. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

Improved look for Email Reports

The billing emails you receive from CloudCheckr have been redesigned.
Detailed Billing (w/ Grouping) report group on more than Tag Keys

In addition to grouping by your Resource Tag Keys, you can now also group your costs by Account, AWS Service, Region, Operation, and/or Usage Type.
New system for self-provisioning users and permissions on projects

You can now add additional users to your CloudCheckr account by clicking on the Users link at the top of the application. Simply enter their email address, choose which projects and permissions they should have access to, and Save. The new user will receive an activation email from CloudCheckr and will establish their password upon activation.

 

Added new User permissions to limit access to cost reports and blended rates

When creating or editing your users, you can limit their access to only select projects. You can choose whether they can see CloudCheckr’s Cost reports within any project. And if they do have access to Cost Reports, you can limit their view to only blended rates (instead of blended and unblended). All of this is managed within the Users page.
Improved performance for Detailed Billing Access and Detailed Billing (w/ Grouping) reports

Further enhancements to the speed and functionality of these two reports. These reports can be found within the Cost menu.
Support for seeing Detailed Billing in projects for Linked Accounts

For customers that utilize consolidated billing within AWS, your sub-accounts (non-payer accounts) will now have Detailed Billing costs data available to view. Their regular costs reports can be filtered between CloudWatch and Detailed Billing, and they will also have access to the Detailed Billing Analysis reports. The costs in these reports will be limited to the AWS account associated with their added credentials. NOTE: Detailed Billing Reports must be enabled on the payer account for this functionality to work.
Support for printing summary reports as PDF

CloudCheckr’s summary reports can now be exported and printed as a PDF.
Upload custom logo for printed reports

You can now upload your own custom logo to be added to the PDF download of the reports. To upload your logo click on the Manage Account link at the top of your CloudCheckr account. NOTE: For best display we recommend an image no larger than 300×75 pixels.
More information/statics on the Historical 12 Month Billing Summary report

Additional statistics have been added to this report including total costs for all months. This report can be found within the Cost menu.
Most Recently Opened list to provide quick access to the reports you use most often

CloudCheckr now provides you with quick-access links to the last 10 reports you have viewed. You will see a new menu in your account titled Most Recently Viewed where these links will display.
Load friendly names automatically for Consolidated Billing reports

If you have Detailed Billing Reports enabled within AWS, CloudCheckr will now automatically retrieve the friendly names of your consolidated accounts. These names will display within your cost reports.
Additional columns added to EC2 Reserved Instance Details report

We’ve added additional columns to this report to make it easier to view. You no longer have to open each reserved instance to see key statistics for each. This report can be found within the Cost > EC2 > Reserved menu.

 

Additional statistics and improvements on the EC2 RI Purchase Recommendations

Further improvements were made to CloudCheckr’s EC2 Reserved Instance Purchase Recommendations. We have added a section to the bottom of the report that lists instances we recommend you do NOT make reserved purchases for, and the reasons for each. This report can be found within the Cost > EC2 > Reserved menu.
More statistics on the Tagged Resources and Untagged Resources reports

These two reports, which can be found within the Service menu, now show additional statistics at the top of the report.

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October 22, 2013

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Monday, October 22, 2013. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

Support for adding friendly names for Linked Accounts

You can now add your AWS account friendly name/alias to display within your cost reports. To add these names, edit your project and click on the Consolidated Billing tab.
Added Recommendations and Running Times to EC2 Reserved Instance Details Report

EC2 Reserved Instance purchase recommendations will now recommend different utilization types based on usage, which displays in the report for each On-Demand instance. You can see this report within the Cost > EC2 > Reserved Instances menu.

 

Added filter for Retired Instances on EC2 Reserved Instance Details Report

You can now choose to hide or display EC2 Reserved Instance purchases that have retired.

 

Optimized Detailed Billing Analysis and Detailed Billing (w/ Grouping) Saved Filters Load Times

Your saved filters within both the Detailed Billing Analysis and Detailed Billing (w/ Grouping) reports will be pre-processed to greatly improve loading times. Both of these reports are available to CloudCheckr Pro users and can be found within the Cost > AWS Billing menu.

 

Show DynamoDB in Map Reports and Dashboard

DynamoDB statistics have been added to the Map Report and Dashboard.

 

Change monitoring support for DynamoDB

Changes to your DynamoDB deployment will now be displayed within your Change Monitoring report and emails. Added, Deleted, and/or Modified tables will be displayed.

 

Improvements to CloudCheckr interface

We’ve continued to improve the look and feel of CloudCheckr, updating several report.

 

Removed Cost Allocation Reports (replaced by Detailed Billing Reports)

Because better, more accurate Cost Allocation data is available within the Detailed Billing Analysis reports, we have removed these reports from CloudCheckr.

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October 7, 2013

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Monday, October 7, 2013. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

EC2 Reserved Instance Purchase Recommendations: Added 1-year vs 3-year views

Users can now select to view costs and projections within the EC2 Reserved Instance Purchase Recommendation Reports over a one year or three year period by using the dropdown at the top of the report. All users can see this report within the Cost > EC2 > Reserved Instances menu. Those using the Consolidated Billing Reports will also find these options within their Consolidated menu.

 

Added sorting capability to Consolidated Billing Summary report

The list of Consolidated Accounts in the Consolidated Billing Summary report can now be sorted by Month-to-Date Costs, Month-to-Date Net Bill, Daily Cost, or Daily Net Bill. Additional Consolidated Bill summary statistics have also been added to this report. You can find this report within the Cost > Bill menu.

 

Custom Report Builder has been Redesigned

Custom Reports can now be built one one screen instead of in 3 separate steps. Name your report, use the service dropdown to choose the type of report to build, choose your search and filter options and Save. Custom Reports can be found within the Custom Reports menu.

 

EC2 Instance History Reports can now be filtered by Availability Zone

Both the EC2 Instance History and EC2 Instance History by Time reports can now be filtered by Availability Zone (in addition to Instance ID, Instance Type, Image ID, Tag, and Region). These reports, which show your complete, intra-day EC2 activity, can be found within the Trending > EC2 menu.

 

Updated emails for Detailed Billing Analysis Report

The daily emails based on your Detailed Billing Analysis Report’s saved filters have been updated to provided better organized, easier to read cost statistics. These emails can be managed within the Cost > Bill > Detailed Billing Analysis report.

 

Reworked Cost Alerts to use Detailed Billing instead of CloudWatch

CloudCheckr Pro Users who have enabled Detailed Billing will now have their Cost Alert emails based on Detailed Billing data instead of CloudWatch. These alerts will be based on Costs (not Net Bill), allowing users with AWS credits to receive alerts based on their account’s Costs. These emails can be configured within the Notification tab on the Edit Project page.

 

New statistics on the Single Month Summary Report

The Single Month Summary Report now has additional statistics including Average Net Bill, Most Expensive Service, and Largest Day-to-Day Changes. This report can be found within the Cost > Bill menu.

 

Print capability for all summary reports

All of CloudCheckr’s Summary Reports are now available in a printer friendly format. To print, simply click the Print icon in the top-right corner of the report.

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September 26, 2013

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Thursday, September 26, 2013. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

Search capabilities for Change Monitoring

You can now search for resources within your Change Monitoring report.

 

Added friendly name to EC2 instances in Change Monitoring

EC2 instance friendly names are now listed alongside their AWS resource ID within the Change Monitoring report.

 

Added filter by Resource Id into Detailed Billing Analysis Report

CloudCheckr Pro users that utilize AWS Detailed Billing reports can now search for specific resources using their resource ID within the Detailed Billing Analysis report. This report is found within the Cost > Bill menu.

 

Daily Consolidated Billing Summary Report Email

You can now have the Consolidated Billing Summary Report, which shows you daily and month-to-date statistics for each of your consolidated AWS accounts, emailed to you on a daily basis. To enable this report edit your project, click on the Notifications tab and check the Consolidated Billing Summary email. Be sure to save your changes. This report is found within the Cost > Bill menu.

 

Click thru on Detailed Billing Analysis report to see raw data

By clicking on any point in the Detailed Billing Analysis report you can download the AWS Detailed Billing Report filtered to that day or hour. This will show you the raw data behind the costs. This report is only available for CloudCheckr Pro users and can be found within the Cost > Bill menu.

 

Optimized and improved Detailed Billing (w/ Grouping)

Performance improvements for the Detailed Billing with Grouping report. This report is only available for CloudCheckr Pro users and can be found within the Cost > Bill menu.

 

New DynamoDB Summary and Details Report (BETA)

These reports can be found under the Service > DynamoDB menu.

 

Additional DynamoDB and ElastiCache checks

• ElastiCache Nodes Not Using Reserved Pricing
• Under-Utilized DynamoDB Tables
• Over-Utilized DynamoDB Tables
• Idle DynamoDB Tables

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September 18, 2013

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Wednesday, September 18, 2013. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

Change Monitoring Ignores

You can now choose to ignore any of the items within the Change Monitoring report and emails. Simply click the ‘X’ icon to the right of any item you don’t want to see in your reports or emails moving forward to ignore it. You can view your ignored items, and restore any, by selecting the Show Ignores checkbox.

 

New Best Practice checks for DynamoDb and ElastiCache

• DynamoDB System Errors
• DynamoDB Client Errors
• DynamoDB Throttled Requests
• Heavy Utilization ElastiCache Reserved Nodes Not Fully Utilized

 

Filter by cost or net bill in the Consolidated Billing Summary Report

CloudCheckr Pro users that utilize AWS Detailed Billing reports can now view the Cost and Net Bill for each of their consolidated accounts within the Consolidated Billing Summary Report. This report is found within the Cost > Bill menu.

 

More totals and averages in the Consolidated Billing Summary Report

Additional details have been added to the Consolidated Billing Summary report to show statistics for the rollup of accounts. This report is found within the Cost > Bill menu.

 

Ability to email Saved Filters in the Detailed Billing Analysis Report on a daily basis

CloudCheckr Pro users that utilize AWS Detailed Billing reports can now have their saved filters within the Detailed Billing Analysis report emailed to them each day. To enable the emails, load your saved filters and click the Email button. This report is found within the Cost > Bill menu.

 

Display both Blended and Unblended Costs in the Detailed Billing Analysis Report

The Detailed Billing Analysis Report now has an option to display the costs in the report as Blended or Unblended. This report, which is found in the Cost > Bill menu is only available to CloudCheckr Pro users.

 

Added “Amortize Reserved Instance Cost (BETA)” to the Billing History Report

You can now spread the upfront cost of your Reserved Instance purchases over the life of the instance within the Billing History Report by clicking the “Amortize Reserved Instance Cost” checkbox and refreshing. This report is found within the Cost > Bill menu.

 

Added “Cost Comparison” chart to the EBS Volume Details Report

The EBS Volume Details report now contains a chart that shows the cost of running the volume as a Standard volume versus Provisioned IOPS. This chart shows the monthly and yearly cost of each option. This report is found within the Services > EC2 > EBS menu.

 

New BETA report – Detailed Billing (w/ Grouping) Report

This report allows you to group costs by multiple levels of Tag Keys. For instance, you can group costs by Tag Keys of CustomerName, then further group costs with in that by Tag Keys of ProductName. You can create reports of up to 5 levels of groupings with Tag Keys. This report is only available to CloudCheckr Pro users and is found within the Cost > Bill menu.

 

Added support for new RDS clusterHiMem DB Type

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September 4, 2013

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Wednesday, September 4, 2013. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

Credits and Costs break out on Billing History Report

CloudCheckr Pro customers can now view the Credit, Cost, and Net Bill breakdown in the Billing History Report when viewing Detailed Billing data. This report can be found within the Cost > Bill menu.

 

Filter by service on Billing History Report

The Billing History Report can now be filtered by AWS Service (EC2, S3, RDS, etc.) to view the monthly historic costs for each service. This report can be found within the Cost > Bill menu.

 

Display Detailed Billing Analysis by Hour

In addition to a daily view, the Detailed Billing Analysis Report can now be viewed as hourly. This will show the total costs, per hour, based on your filter selections. This report is only available to CloudCheckr Pro customers and can be found within the Cost > Bill menu.

 

Save filters in Detailed Billing Analysis

You can now save your filter selections in the Detailed Billing Analysis Report. This report is only available to CloudCheckr Pro customers and can be found within the Cost > Bill menu.

 

Performance improvements in Detailed Billing Analysis

Performance enhancements and improvements were made to the Detailed Billing Analysis Report. This report is only available to CloudCheckr Pro customers and can be found within the Cost > Bill menu.

 

Display Billing Details Report with amortized reserved instance costs (BETA)

You can now spread the upfront cost of your Reserved Instance purchases over the life of the instance within the Billing Details Report by clicking the “Amortize Reserved Instance Cost” checkbox and refreshing. This report is found within the Cost > Bill menu.

 

New Consolidated Billing Summary report (BETA)

The Consolidated Billing Summary Report shows you daily and month-to-date statistics for each of your consolidated AWS accounts. This report is found within the Cost > Bill menu.

August 28, 2013

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Wednesday, August 28, 2013. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

Improved Detailed Billing Analysis Report (more filtering)

This report allows you to group and/or filter your costs by AWS Account, Region, or Service. This new report can be found within the Cost > Bill menu.

 

Improved Cost Allocation Reporting (with grouping) Report (save filters, performance fixes)

In addition to performance enhancements, you can now save multiple filter options within the report to be viewed at any time. This report is based off of your AWS cost allocation tags, and allows you to view all of your tags that share the same Key. This report also allows you to select custom date ranges, filter the report by service and across multiple tags (showing the costs of resources that share whichever tags are selected). This report can be found within the Cost > Bill menu.

 

Support for both Detailed Billing and CloudWatch as data sources in Billing Summary, Billing Details, and Billing History reports

CloudCheckr Pro users who have Detailed Billing Reports enabled within AWS will now be able to see cost data from both CloudWatch and Detailed Billing (which displays Cost, Credits, and Net Bill). The cost reports can be found within the Cost menu.

 

Support for multiple consolidated billing accounts in Billing Summary, Billing Details, and Billing History reports

If you are using consolidated billing within AWS, and create a CloudCheckr project using credentials from the Payer account, the cost reports can be filtered to show any of the consolidated AWS accounts. These reports can be found within the Cost menu.

 

Best practice check to find untagged resources

This best practice check will highlight any AWS resources that are lacking tags. This check can be found in the Usage tab of the Best Practices report.

 

Untagged Resources report

This report will list all AWS resource that have not been tagged. It can be found within the Services menu.

 

Increased Trending reports to 365 days

All Trending reports can now be viewed for 7, 30, 90, 180, and 365 day periods. These reports can be found within the Trending menu.

 

July 31, 2013

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Wednesday, July 31, 2013. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

Cost Reports Utilize AWS Detailed Billing

CloudCheckr can now utilize your AWS account’s Detailed Billing Reports (instead of CloudWatch) to generate your cost reports. There are several benefits with making this change. In addition to CloudCheckr providing more consistent and accurate reporting, AWS credits will now be accurately reflected in your cost reports.

Using the data available within the Detailed Billing Reports, we have created a new cost report: Detailed Billing Analysis

This new report allows you to group and/or filter your costs by AWS Account, Region, or Service. This new report can be found within the Cost > Bill menu.

NOTE: To take advantage of the new Detailed Billing data and reporting both the “Detailed Billing Report” and the “Detailed Billing Report (with resources and tags)” need to be enabled within your AWS account. There’s no additional AWS charge for enabling these reports.

 

New Cost Allocation Report With Grouping Capabilities

This report is based off of your AWS cost allocation tags, and allows you to view all of your tags that share the same Key. This report also allows you to select custom date ranges, filter the report by service and across multiple tags (showing the costs of resources that share whichever tags are selected). This report can be found within the Cost > Bill menu.

 

RDS Resource Utilization Details Report

This report provides utilization statistics (taken directly from CloudWatch) for each of the RDS DB Instances running within AWS. It shows the average CPU utilization by hour of the day, and day of the week for each DB. It shows CPU spikes. Average CPU each day for the past 30 days, as well as the number of hours the DBs were running over and under utilized. This report can be found within the Resource Utilization > RDS menu.

 

EBS Resource Utilization Details Report

This report provides utilization statistics (taken directly from CloudWatch) for all of the EBS volumes running within AWS. The report shows how much data is written to/read from the volumes by hour of the day and day of the week. It shows read and write spikes. Average amount of data written and read each day for the past 30 days, as well as the number of hours the volumes were idle. This report can be found within the Resource Utilization > EC2 menu.

 

 

Self-Serve Payment System

Freemium customers can now upgrade to CloudCheckr Pro from within the CloudCheckr application by clicking on the Upgrade button found at the top of the page. The first month of service is only $49.

 

Bill Summary Report Supports Consolidated Billing

When looking at the Cost Summary report for a project that is setup with Consolidated Billing through AWS, you can now filter the report by AWS Account ID.

 

Support for AWS GovCloud Billing in a single project

When configuring a GovCloud project within CloudCheckr you can now enter the credentials from your main “payer” AWS account. This allows CloudCheckr to report on the costs associated with your AWS GovCloud account.

 

New Export on Billing Details, Billing History, and Cost Allocation Reports

CSV Export capabilities have been added to the Billing Details, Billing History, and Cost Allocation Reports. Simply click the Export button in any of these reports to export the data.

 

July 19, 2013

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Friday, July 19, 2013. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

Best Practice Report Enhancements

Filtering Report By Resource Tag – You can now filter CloudCheckr’s Best Practices report to only display items associated with specific resource tags. To use this feature, simply select a resource tag in the Tag dropdown at the top of the report and click the Refresh button.

Export Best Practices Results – A list of the items discovered within each Best Practice check can now be exported to a csv file. An export icon is displayed to the right of each best practice check with “issues”. Click that icon and CloudCheckr will download the details of that check to a csv file.

 

Enhanced Custom Report Options

We have added additional search and filter capabilities to the EC2 Custom Reports. Here are the new items you can search and filter by:

Network bytes in
Network bytes out
Peak CPU utilization
Lowest CPU utilization
Total instance cost (instance + EBS volume)
Instance only cost
EBS volume cost
2 day CPU utilization percentage
Age since launch
Hours running under-utilized
Hours running over-utilized

You can also determine the total number of instances or S3 buckets to show within the results of your custom reports.

 

Drill-downs for all Resource Utilization Heat Maps

With the last update we added drill-down capabilities to the EC2 CPU Utilization Heat Map. This allowed you to click any cell in the heat map, and it would show you the instances (and their CPU utilization) for all instances running at that time. This feature has been added to all CloudCheckr heat maps: EC2 Network, EBS Volume, Elastic Load Balancers, RDS, ElastiCache, and DynamoDB.

 

EC2 Network Resource Utilization Summary Report

This report provides network utilization statistics (taken directly from CloudWatch) for all of the EC2 instances running within AWS. This report can be found within the Resource Utilization > EC2 menu.

 

RDS Reserved Instance Purchase Recommendations Report

This report shows the possible cost savings of optimal RDS Reserved DB Instance usage. It provides a complete list of recommended Reserved DB Instances to purchase and demonstrates the cost and savings of each. All numbers are based on optimal Reserved DB Instance usage, which means purchasing a 3-year Heavy Utilization Reserved Instance. This report can be found within the Services > RDS > Reserved Instances menu.

 

July 9, 2013

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Wednesday, July 10, 2013. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

EC2 Instance History By Instance (with export)

This report will show you each EC2 instance that ran within your AWS account each day, as well as how many hours the instance were running. The report can be filtered by date range, as well as AMI, Instance Id, Region, tags, and instance type. The data from this report can also be exported by clicking on the ‘Save as CSV’ icon at the top of the report. This report can be found within the Services > EC2 menu.

 

RDS Cost Summary Report

This report provides an overview of the costs associated with your RDS deployment. It provides a 30-day cost estimate based on the DB instances currently deployed, and provides a breakdown based on region, price type, engine type, and db instance class. You’ll also see cost details and predictions based on your actual AWS RDS bill for the month. This report can be found within the Cost > RDS menu.

 

RDS Cost Comparison Details Report

This report shows how much you would spend, were you to move each of your RDS DB instances to the various pricing types in AWS. It shows how much you would pay for an instance were it on-demand, 1 year reservation, or 3 year reservation (including pricing for light, medium, and heavy utilization). This report can be found within the Cost > RDS menu.

 

Resource Utilization Summary (EBS) Report

This report provides utilization statistics (taken directly from CloudWatch) for all of the EBS volumes running within AWS. It highlights bytes written/read, the amount of time the volumes were writing/reading, the amount of time the volumes sat idle, and shows activity by hour of the day and day of the week. This report can be found within the Resource Utilization > EC2 menu.

 

Drilldown for EC2 CPU Resource Utilization Heat map

By clicking on any cell within the EC2 CPU Resource Utilization Heat Map, you will be given information about each instance running during that hour as well as it’s average CPU utilization for that hour. To use this feature, simply load the EC2 CPU Resource Utilization Heat Map and click on any cell. This report can be found within the Resource Utilization > EC2 menu.

 

New Best Practice Checks

Snapshots Of AMIs That Have Since Been Deleted
EC2 Instances Not Utilizing Termination Protection

 

July 2, 2013

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Tuesday, July 2, 2013. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next scan of your AWS deployment.

CloudCheckr’s Instance History reports are designed to show you how your EC2 deployment has fluctuated throughout each day. This first report we are releasing will be a summary report, providing a daily breakdown of how many unique EC2 instances have run in your account each day, as well as the total number of instance hours across all instances. This report can also be filtered by AMI, Instance Id, Region, tags, instance type, and date range. More detailed reports will be available soon. This report can be found within the Services > EC2 menu.

 

Custom EC2 Reports

You now have the ability to create and save your own EC2 reports. Users can search for instances by more than 10 criteria, including: Cost, Status, CPU Utilization, AMI, and Region. They can also save those searches to be used at anytime.

 

Resource Tags Report

The Resource Tags Report allows you to see all of the tags you are using, across all services and regions, within AWS. In addition to the list of tags you will also see details about each resource that is associated with each tag. This report can be found under Services.

 

AWS Cost Allocation (Advanced)

This report is based off of your AWS cost allocation tags, and provides a daily cost breakdown for each tag. This report also allows you to select custom date ranges and to filter the report by service and across multiple tags (showing the costs of resources that share whichever tags are selected). This report can be found within the Cost > Bill menu.

These reports provide information about CPU Utilization, processed from CloudWatch statistics, for both RDS and ElastiCache. They highlight under and over utilization, utilization usage for hours of the day and days of the week, as well as utilization for the past 30 days. These reports can both be found within the Resource Utilization menu.

 

RDS Change Monitoring

CloudCheckr will now detect any changes made to your RDS deployment (such as DB instances being launched or deleted, new security groups being added, etc.) and report on those changes.

 

RDS Heat Map

A Heat Map has been added for RDS, showing CPU Utilization, Disk Read Throughput, Disk Write Throughput, and Freeable Memory usage for the past week. This is in addition to the EC2 Instance, Elastic Load Balancer, EBS Volume, and ElastiCache Heat Maps that are already available within CloudCheckr. This report can be found within the Resource Utilization > RDS menu.

 

RDS Reserved Instance Reports

These reports focus on the Reserved DB Instances purchased within RDS. They are designed to not only show you how many RDS Reserved Instance DBs you have purchased and are utilizing, but details about those you have purchased but are not taking advantage of. This report can be found within the Services > RDS > Reserved Instances menu.

 

RDS Cost Comparison Summary

This report shows you what it would cost to run your RDS DB instances under the various AWS pricing models. A detailed report will be available soon providing this breakdown for each DB instance. This report can be found within the Cost > RDS menu.

Miscellaneous

New Filter & Search capabilities in Details Reports
Filter Bill Details report by AWS service
Ability to filter by Resource Tags added to several reports including: Heat Maps, Resource Utilization reports, and Summary and Details reports.